1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a hair transplantation system in which a multi-bladed knife harvests strips of skin containing living hair follicles from a donor region of a patient's scalp, a cutting device cuts the strips of skin into very small hair follicle grafts, a cartridge stores the grafts, and an instrument implants grafts fed from the cartridge into a recipient region of the patient's scalp.
2. Description of the Related Art
As is generally known, hair transplantation procedures involve removing hair grafts from a region of a patient's scalp which contains permanently-growing hair, and implanting those hair grafts into a balding region of the patient's scalp.
Traditional hair transplantation procedures, however, often produced undesirable results. For example, as described in Applicant's co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/444,923, entitled "Hair Implantation Device", the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference into the subject application, traditional hair transplants often produce a "corn row" appearance. Such an effect generally results from transplanting large hair grafts, of roughly 5 to 25 hairs each, as is commonly done in traditional hair transplantation procedures.
New concepts of hair transplantation are based upon the observation that, in general, hair does not grow singly, but emerges from the scalp in small anatomic units called follicular units. Recently, a hair transplantation procedure called follicular transplantation has been developed which takes advantage of these natural hair groupings. This procedure produces results that are virtually undetectable. That is, it is difficult to distinguish hair grown from a follicular transplant from one's own non-transplanted hair.
In a typical follicular transplant, grafts of 1 to 4 hair follicles per graft, i.e., one follicular unit, are harvested from a donor region of a patient's scalp which contains permanently growing hair. In men, this region, known as the Hippocratic wreath, includes the back and sides of the scalp. Thereafter, the harvested grafts are implanted in balding areas of the patient's scalp. Because very small hair grafts are transplanted in their natural groupings, follicular transplants can produce a head of hair which appears to be to totally natural to the naked eye.
However, because follicular transplant procedures use such small hair grafts, the time it takes to perform such procedures is greatly increased over that of its traditional counterpart, particularly in cases where many grafts (e.g., thousands of grafts) are transplanted. As a result, conventional follicular transplant procedures often may not be completed in just one session.
The large megasession, as defined by the present Applicant, is a large-scale follicular transplant procedure which provides patients with a faster alternative to conventional transplant procedures. In the large megasession, as many as 12 to 16 people at a time work on a single patient. As a result, large numbers of hair grafts, e.g., 3500 or more hair grafts, can be transplanted in a single session. However, even with a large staff, the large megasession can still take over 8 hours.
Using conventional manual techniques, it is not possible to increase the speed of performing transplant procedures without sacrificing the quality of the result and the safety of both the patient and those performing the procedure.
Thus, there exists a need to lessen the amount of time it takes to perform large-scale follicular hair transplants, such as the large megasession, without sacrificing safety and quality.